


By The Barricade's Fire

by PippinTheRenegade



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Aftermath, Alcohol, Angst, Canon Era, Everything Hurts, Funeral, Gratuitous Sobbing, Hurt, I'm Sorry, M/M, Minor substance abuse, Painting, altered timeline, gunfire and death, no i'm not, sadfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 09:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6233830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PippinTheRenegade/pseuds/PippinTheRenegade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone slammed him in the head, the world went black, and the next thing Grantaire knew, he was on the floor and his existence was shattered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The world was dark by the time he finally came to. Grantaire hurt all over- limbs ached from the unnatural position he had fallen into, and his head felt like a cracked egg, an odd sort of heavy, wet pain that radiated from the back of his skull. He coughed and groaned, rolled over in the dust and tried to right himself despite the protests from basically every bit of him. He had to, somehow.

The shift in position made his head swim and his vision blur, but he had to get up. He had to, even if he couldn't remember why. Something was different, very different, from the last thing he could remember, though even that was fuzzy. Damn his drinking, damn this pain, damn this quiet-

That was it!

Grantaire got his arms under him, palms down, and pushed against the floorboard and through his shoulder threatening to give out until he was sitting. He was still at the Musain, that much he could tell from here. Even with the furniture gone and the dust and grime and that acrid gunpowder smell from the fighting, not to mention the splitting headache, he recognized it. The quiet, though... it shouldn't be this quiet. Not with men still on the barricade. Not with his friends out there, and the soldiers, and... and now it didn't sound like there was any of that.

He staggered to his feet, slammed into the wall hard and used it as a brace, and stumbled toward the door. Grantaire leaned on the door frame, and a part damaged by a stray shot caved under his hand, nearly spilling him back down to the floor. He managed to catch himself, then turned his attention to the streets. It was... not good. Very not good.

Hellish, even.

Small fires- not torches or lanterns or anything obviously deliberate- burned among the debris that made the barricade, creating just enough light for Grantaire to see exactly what he had missed. Someone had propped Gavroche against a crate, and the boy looked almost peaceful for some reason. Courfeyrac was on the ground a few feet away and bleeding (or had been); Combeferre had fallen not far, either, and damn it all if he didn't look like he was reaching for Courf. He could see Jehan and Feuilly, crumpled heaps of stained fabric and limbs in the street, and someone with a shattered shoulder he had to assume was Bossuet by the clothes. Marius and Bahorel were nowhere in sight, but they could be just on the other side of the wall.

Grantaire pressed the heel of a hand to his temple, fighting against the urge to pass out again. His whole body shook, fingers cold and damn near useless and knees threatening to buckle under him, and he swallowed hard and painful. He needed a plan. If someone was alive, if he could find Joly- but a quick turn of his head killed that thought as he caught sight of Joly, slumped against the wall of the Musain with three holes in his chest.

He needed to get out of here. There were soldiers on the ground, too, scattered about his friends; at least they had taken some of the men down fighting. That did mean, though, that someone would be by eventually to collect them, right? How long had he been out? Not long enough for anyone to come count up the dead, it looked like, so maybe a few hours. Maybe one. Still definitely the same night, though.

There was still something missing. Some _one_ missing. He ran a quick count, thanking his own stupid tendencies for the alcohol in his system to keep his emotions down and his brain working oddly well, and came up short one, even with Marius and Bahorel missing. The only one he couldn't account for was...

Oh, no. Not him. Enjolras couldn't be gone, too.

Where had he been during the fighting? Grantaire muttered a string of swears under his breath; bits and flashes of action were all he could remember. Upstairs... He- Enjolras- had gone upstairs, streaked past him in a flash of red and gold like a flame with that flag tied around himself as a sash. Four, maybe five, of the soldiers had followed, not counting the one who had apparently had the sense to brain the drunk with the butt of his rifle, and then... shit!

Grantaire took the stairs two at a time, panic setting his heart racing, and he nearly lept over the banister with how fast he rounded the corner. The scene that greeted him stopped him dead in his tracks, his feet faltering at the sudden halt. He tried to make a noise, to call out to someone, but his voice caught in his throat as cold dread crept up his spine. The candles were gone, the room almost completely dark except the glow from outside shining in the window. Papers in handwritings belonging to the dead men in the street below covered the floor- he could hear them underfoot as he took a stumbling step forward- and the one table that hadn't been pitched out onto the barricade lay in a corner with a broken leg.

He waited, blood pounding in his ears, until his eyes adjusted well enough to see. There! By the window, covered in a thin layer of dust from the damaged wall, was a red coat and golden hair and a disturbingly still version of that beautiful face he knew so well. Grantire scrambled across the room- would have run if his damn legs would cooperate- fell to his knees by Enjolras's side, and immediately reached for his hand. The fingers in his grip were growing cold, the muscles gave no resistance, and Grantaire could feel his heart cracking. If he had been here sooner, maybe he could have done something.

Or maybe he would be dead on the floor, too. Either one would be better than this.

"You can't leave me," he whispered, one shaking hand reaching up to wipe away the dirt that marred his angel's face. He ran his fingers though the nest of curls and found a bleeding scrape across Enjolras' temple, probably from a bullet. One of many. "You made me believe, damn it! I-I didn't want it, any of it, but you..." He couldn't finish the sentence, his voice already shaking too much to bear. He drew a ragged breath and shoved away the pages and bits of debris to slip his arms under his friend's frame, hugged him close and pressed his face into the fabric of his coat. It wasn't supposed to end this way. "You're all I ever wanted."

Grantaire lay still, blinking back tears and part of his wishing someone would come through already and shoot him in the back, until something stirred against his cheek. Was... was that a pulse? Grantaire's own heart skipped a beat, and he pressed his ear against Enjolras' chest, daring not to crack a smile until he felt it again. A small, weak, fluttery beat, but a beat! Alive!

He kept one arm under Enjolras' back and shifted to hook the other under his knees before letting out a breath he forgot he was holding. He hugged the other man tight to his chest- had he always been this heavy?- and struggled to his feet. Downstairs, outside, hospital, freedom. Away from here, that's all he had to do, and then they might have a chance. Downstairs first.

"It'll be okay," Grantaire muttered, carefully making his way down the stairs and out the back. If he kept saying it, he might just start believing it himself. "You'll be okay, I swear. Don't let go, Apollo, it'll be okay."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALRIGHT, so I've been goaded into adding more to this by people wanting to know if Enjolras lives or not. Congrats, here you are. This was supposed to go a little bit differently at first, but liberties had been taken with living arrangements, and here we are.

Grantaire was still having a hard time reconciling everything. He had slipped away from the barricade, somehow, before anyone came back to count the dead, all the way back to the apartment he shared- had shared, he corrected- with Joly and Bosseut. Within the hour, he had tracked down a physician (a man who had been friend to both Combeferre and Joly but not a good enough one to join them on the barricade), drug him back to see his patient, and expended so much energy that he passed out on the floor before he could be told whether Enjolras would live though the night or not. The answer had been a tentative "yes," had he been conscious to hear it.

He awoke the next morning with a start, his heart racing and head pounding, without a clear memory of how exactly he had ended up on his own floor. He took a moment, slowly putting the pieces back together again. The fighting, the fire, bodies in the street, Enjolras tight against his chest, heavy and slowly going cold... it all made a frightening amount of sense. The fact that he had made it out at all was almost unbelievable, even more so that he had managed to save Enjolras, too.

He sat up, slowly turning his head to take in the whole that was Enjolras in his bed. He had been stripped of both shirt and vest, now covered in red-stained bandages and a thin blanket. He looked deathly pale, but he breathed in small, ragged inhales. At least one thing was right with the world still. A hint of a smile curled the corner of Grantaire's lips- bittersweet, that was the word.

A sound in the other room- the hurried scuffing of shoes from what he could tell- snapped Grantaire back to reality. Someone was here, in the apartment. On the other side of the door. He scrambled to his feet, grabbed a bottle off his floor, the only thing he could think of that could actually be used as a weapon, and slowly crept to the door. No doubt one of the soldiers had realized the leader of the revolt was missing and had gone looking for him. How they had come to look here escaped him, but the cynic wasn't about to give up now without a fight.

The bedroom door creaked on its hinges as it slowly swung open, and the footsteps stopped. Grantaire raised the bottle to his shoulder, both hands around the neck like a bat, and swallowed hard. A moment later, he locked eyes on the intruder, and she- she?- caught sight of him and-

"Grantaire?"

"'Chetta?"

Her face was flushed and lined with worry, her eyes bloodshot from exhaustion or crying or a bit of both, but she smiled at him all the same. The bottle hit the floor behind him and rolled away, and Grantaire beckoned her closer for a hug. Musichetta breathed a sigh of relief into his waistcoat, and he could already feel his heart clench up with guilt.

"I was so worried," she said, releasing him just enough to hold him at arm's length. "I heard about the fighting last night, and the soldiers wouldn't let me close to the Musain, and I thought-" She caught herself and shook away the thought. "But you're here. You're alive and fine, and the first one I've seen, too. Joly and Bosseut aren't in their rooms, but I don't know where they would have gone. Where are they?"

Grantaire stared past her, his mouth open as if to say something but the words were missing. What could he tell her? What should he? He felt like his heart was in a vice; finding the words proved nearly impossible. "I-I'm sorry," he managed to stammer at last, trying as best he could to avoid her gaze- the floor, the wall, the dust moat in the light of the window, anything was better than seeing the fear blooming in 'Chetta's eyes. "I tried... I couldn't... they..."

"They what?" Try as she might to hide it, Grantaire could hear the distress in her voice, and her grip on his arm grew tighter. "They've been arrested? You got away, but they're stuck in some prison cell, is that it?"

Grantaire shook his head, finally staring her in the face. His eyes betrayed him, the grief and guilt, and Musichetta flinched as if he had struck her. "I'm sorry," he repeated, steadier and softer this time. "They're... gone. I got knocked out, and by the time I came to..." He floundered for the words, but they abandoned him again.

'Chetta trembled on her feet in front of him, then she collapsed against his chest with a rattling sob. She shook her head, burying her face into his clothes, muttering denials over and over again. Grantaire held her tight with one arm, the other hand slowly stroking through her curls in what he hoped was a soothing gesture. As much as he wished to cry with her, if only to get rid of this awful tension in his chest, the tears wouldn't come.

They stood in the doorway for what seemed like forever, Grantaire trying his best to calm 'Chetta, until she was at last doing more breathing than crying.

"Do you want to sit down?" he asked, and she nodded without lifting her head. "Okay. There are chairs over here. Just follow me, alright? I'll explain everything."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a liiiittle shorter than I anticipated, but I also didn't expect to be writing this bit, either. The next one will probably be much longer- I have nine funerals to plan and an unconscious Enjolras to deal with.
> 
> Your kudos and comments are food for my soul, so don't be afraid to let me know what you think! You can hit me up on my Tumblr, [theblazeofmemory](http://www.theblazeofmemory.tumblr.com), for chit chat and fun if you'd like.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments fuel me and my 2am ideas


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